For fifty years, scientists had searched for the secret to making tiny implantable devices that could travel through the bloodstream. Engineers at Stanford have demonstrated a wirelessly powered device that just may make the dream a reality.

One example — of several great slides — regarding the old vs. the new paradigm:

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From DSC:
Re: one of the bullet points on the last slide — i.e. “Faculty work as part of instructional team” — here’s my take on what that team increasingly needs to look like in order to engage our students and to compete:

From biotech visionaries growing new body parts, to in vitro meat, from a global sensor web that monitors the health of the earth’s biosphere, to a massive effort to reverse-engineer the human brain, Surviving the Future takes a disquieting and astonishing look at some of science’s most radical new technologies.

The film also takes a hard look at the ‘new normal’ of the climate crisis, as we balance our desire to be environmentally responsible—to ‘do the right thing’—and still participate in the consumer economy that is, for better or worse, the basis of our society.

Surviving the future is an unsettling glimpse into the human psyche right now, as our culture staggers between a fervent belief in futuristic utopian technologies on the one hand, and dreams of apocalyptic planetary payback on the other.

Thought provoking and visually stunning, Surviving the Future looks at the stark and extreme choices facing our species as we prepare ourselves for the most challenging and consequential period in our history.

Nanotechnology applications are increasing across all industry sectors, strongly driven by societal needs. Medicine is usually the first use that springs to mind, with nanotechnology being widely researched for a variety of applications. On this note, faster and simpler diagnostic techniques for breast cancer feature in this issue. Organ regeneration is of constant interest, and the concept of inkjet printing to print cells in three dimensions as the basis for blood vessel synthesis is also explored.